


the soul you used to be

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s03e16 Paradise Lost, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 05:38:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16212554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: Grant sneaks into Hive's room, but it's not Hive he's looking for.





	the soul you used to be

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Halsey's "Ghost."

All it takes is one very drunk head stumbling up the stairs and the guards move off the suite to intercept. Chen’s slurring something about never knowing he was serving an ocean god when Grant slips through the unprotected door. He eases it shut behind him, just a faint click beneath Chen’s protests that he doesn’t even know how to swim as he’s forced back downstairs.

The suite is even more luxurious than the room Grant was given—and that wasn’t too shabby; he half-expected a broom closet after the months he’s spent strong-arming his way into the inner circle. But he gets the feeling, from not just the size of it (it’s got an en suite bath along with a balcony that links the windows on either side of the bed and is basically another room unto itself) but also from the warm touches like the slightly out of place Monet sketch and the afghan on the bed that it belonged to one of the Malicks before their guest arrived.

The great tentacle monster from the sky isn’t here though. He’s downstairs in a private meeting with their hosts, leaving his reluctant shadow all alone.

She looks small and fragile with just the afghan covering her up, and Grant tries not to think about why that is, if she’s just so out of it that unmaking the bed was too much trouble or if she fell asleep waiting for Hive to come back. She’s shivering too, but the room is warm enough so it’s gotta be a dream. Or more likely a nightmare.

He rounds the bed on soft feet. The guards should be back at their posts by now so he’s gotta balance speed with care here. As soon as he sits next to her, he’s reaching out to cover her mouth to stop her screaming and giving the game away.

Just like last time they met, he’s misread her, but there’s no Bakshi here to take the blow for him. Her jaw slams into the heel of his hand before he can recoil. It’s likely only the shock of that that saves him from having his throat slashed by the shining something she swings at him. He uses her momentum to spin her around, tugging her back into his chest and trapping her hands—and the dinner knife she must’ve stolen from the table downstairs; good girl—in front of her.

“Simmons,” he hisses while she struggles. She’s already giving up, the fight leeching out of her, but she could be a whole hell of a lot quieter about it. “It’s me. It’s Ward.”

That shocks her. When she twists to look up at him, he gives her the space to see him clearly.

She’s slow, her motions stilted. Could just be the surprise. Could be something else.

She touches his cheek, the curve of his eye-socket. “Ward?” she asks in that same dreamy tone she slipped into during that meeting downstairs, and just like before it has his stomach threatening to turn on him.

“Yeah,” he says with forced gentleness, “it’s me.”

Her eyes are glassy, dazed. “I thought I saw him earlier…”

Grant’s got a lot of self-control when it comes to emotional cues. He has to, in a line of work like his. But he finds himself struggling to keep the anger he feels from showing through.

A knock sounds on the door. “Ma’am?” one of the guards calls.

Shit. Grant takes a heartbeat to look Simmons over—she’s out of it, no question—before deciding he’s just gonna have to take his chances. He rolls over the bed and gets himself behind the door just as it swings tentatively open.

“Is everything all right in here?”

Simmons is exactly where Grant left her, one arm still hovering in the air like she’s studying a face that isn’t there. She blinks, her focus shifting to the door, to the guard, to Grant. She blinks again, a steadiness in her jaw that wasn’t there before.

“You’re not Will,” she says. Her tone is close to what it was before, probably close enough to fool the mouth breather guarding her, but Grant knows this is the real Simmons. Something in his chest loosens, something that’s been gripped tight for hours, ever since that _thing_ made his dramatic coming out.

Simmons was there of course, standing resentfully off to one side under the watchful eye of her guards, whose job apparently doesn’t extend beyond making sure she doesn’t run off because she was muttering the whole time, completely ruining Hive’s show.

“Jemma,” the monster said, a smile on his … well Grant doesn’t really think he had lips at that point, but it was still a smile. Hive fixed her with a heavy look and extended a hand. A second later, after a brief internal struggle, Simmons just about melted, came eagerly into his arms and cuddled up to him like the rest of them weren’t even there.

Through the crack between the door and the frame, Grant sees the guard shift uncomfortably. “No, ma’am. But I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

Simmons nods faintly and lays back down. The door closes, the guard satisfied she was just dreaming.

At the sound of the lock turning, Simmons shoots back up, her eyes fixing on Grant. He shushes her before she can speak, quickly closing the distance between them to lessen the chances of their being heard.

“You with me this time?” he asks.

She hesitates just long enough for that tightness he felt earlier to come back with a vengeance. Her gaze goes faraway again but there’s a focus to it that tells him she’s still with him.

“He’s … busy. Too busy to worry about me.”

Grant doesn’t like the sound of that one bit.

She frowns up at him. “What are you doing here? And did I see you earlier?”

He’s not sure if she means just now or downstairs or even earlier than that. When he was introduced to his supposed god, Hive said his reputation preceded him, courtesy of Simmons. What that meant, Hive didn’t volunteer and Grant didn’t ask.

“We’ve gotta go,” he says, deciding to ignore her question for now. He finds her shoes tucked neatly beneath the bed and wonders if she or someone else did that. He pushes them into her lap. “There’s a bomb.”

“A-” she pulls on the shoes. “A _bomb_?” she whispers, hopping after him onto the balcony. It’s icy cold. No snow on the ground, but winter’s still hanging on.

“You think I came here to bow down and worship?”

She doesn’t have an answer for that but Grant can’t even feel proud for having stumped her; she looks so much like she did struggling to figure out if he was real that he only wants to hit something.

“Come on,” he orders gruffly.

“And what?” she demands, louder now they’re outside with the wind to carry her voice away. “Escape is back that way.”

He swings one leg over the railing to straddle it while throwing a grin back her way.

“Oh no.”

“I know you don’t like heights, but it’s an easy drop.”

“That’s at least thirty feet!”

“Better than thirty thousand.” He gets his other leg over. “Come on, Simmons. You can’t tell me the woman who tried to jam a splinter bomb in my back is wussing out now.”

Her eyes are fixed on the distance between them and the ground.

“Hey,” he says, dropping his voice into that gentle tone he used so often in their days together on the Bus. “You can do this.”

He half expects her to keep fighting, but whether because he’s still got some sway with her or (more likely) Hive’s got her so mixed up she forgets she’s supposed to hate him for who he was in the old days, she starts climbing.

“I’ll go first,” he says. “You just gotta drop back and I’ll catch you. Promise.”

Her hand covers his on the railing before he can let go. Her skin is cold, but her grip is strong. Her thumb moves over his knuckles. “Why are you doing this?” she asks.

“I told you, I didn’t come here to bow down.”

It’s the answer she expects. Her hand leaves his to wrap tight around the stone railing.

“And I promised Coulson I’d get you out if I could.”

Her surprise is everything he hoped for—and one more sign of the real Simmons breaking through whatever Inhuman fog that monster keeps her in.

He pastes on a grin. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Always the traitor.”

He drops down, catches himself on the edge of the balcony. Curtains are closed on the floor below, thank God. He swings once, twice, and then goes sailing back, twisting around in midair to catch a branch of the willow behind him. His palms sting from the impact but his fingers grip tight enough to keep him from falling.

Even with years of practice—not much to do for fun in the Wyoming wilderness and tree climbing at least kept his strength up—the journey to the ground is agonizingly slow. Every second he’s worrying Hive’s finished his meeting, the guards have decided to check in on Simmons again, Malick’s daughter has come by to play hostess. There are too many things that can go wrong with this last second plan and Simmons is still up there, out of his reach.

Once his feet hit the ground, he races back to the house. “Simmons!” he hisses. She’s stiff as a board on the edge of the balcony and he sees her shoulders stiffen at the sound of his voice. “Come on! I’ll catch you!”

She doesn’t move. He thinks about the bomb. How long has it been since he set its timer? He tries to count minutes between the basement and Hive’s suite, the time it took to break Simmons’ out of her trance, climbing the tree… He’s pretty sure it’s too much.

He’s so busy counting, he nearly misses Simmons finally getting up the guts to move. Her arms cross over her chest and she lets gravity do the hard work for her, falling slowly back like a statue that’s been overbalanced.

He opens his arms, bends his knees with her weight to lessen the impact. He feels her sigh of relief.

He doesn’t give her time to recover, just cradles her to his chest and starts running. This side of the property is close to the carefully cultivated wilderness keeping the Malicks far from their neighbors; it’s barely a hundred yards to the tree line and there he stops to set Simmons on her feet. By then, the worst of her shaking’s stopped, but she still needs a second to steady herself against him.

He grins. “Told you I’d-”

His words cut off at the sound of the explosion. The first floor of the house erupts in flame, sending glass bursting out like sparkling confetti. As the sound of the initial shockwave fades, it’s replaced by screams. The fire’s moving fast, already consuming much of the second floor. The room they just left won’t be there much longer.

Not his best work, he thinks. If he’d had more time he would’ve hidden some accelerant at the doorways and windows. Not too shabby though.

“We’ve gotta go,” he says, tearing his eyes away. They wanna be out of the woods and to the car he’s got hidden just off the road before the fire breaks away from the house.

Simmons doesn’t move. Her pale face is lit up gold by the flames, reminding him the two of them are easy to see out here with the fire lighting up the lawn. But her hand is still against his chest, warm now and surprisingly heavy.

“He’s not dead.”

No, Grant didn’t think he would be. Would’ve been nice though.

She smiles, big and bright, the way she used to in the old days. “But that’s sure to have damaged Will’s body beyond any usefulness.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t thought about that. If she wanted to give her ex a proper burial after all this is over, Grant pretty much ruined any chance of that.

The hand in his shirt twists, pulling him down. The kiss is fierce and fast, over before he has time to steady himself against her hips.

“What was that?” he demands.

“If Hydra does catch us,” she says, already slipping through his fingers and into the trees, “or we burn up in a forest fire, I don’t want that _thing_ to be the last person I ever kissed.” She’s moving fast and the trees thicken up quick, so he only hears the next bit because he scrambles to catch up. “And you are only slightly less disgusting than he is.”

He rests his hand low on her back, purposefully passing closer than necessary by her when he takes the lead. “Good to have you back, Simmons.”

She scoffs, disbelieving. He doesn’t bother to tell her how much he really means it.

 


End file.
